The Path of the Just

Chapter 14 (Part 2)

Not only would the righteous choose to abstain from certain common pleasures
and to always be more halachically stringent as we’d said; they’d also agree
to certain other restrictions.

But once again the point needs to be made that these farther-reaching and
very consequential sorts of abstentions are not at all required of the rest
of us; they’re beyond the ordinary. Yet we could learn a thing or two from
them, which we’ll try to underscore.

The type of abstentions we’re about to enunciate are the sort that those who
would want (and are qualified) to be pious would follow because they’re in
keeping with their dreams of a truer and deeper degree of closeness to G-d
than we can imagine or would strive for. (In fact, if we decided to abide by
these practices to the degree the pious would, our actions would be deemed
off-the-mark and we’d justifiably be advised to stop.)

The pious would “seclude and detach” themselves “from the company of others”
as often as possible, and would “direct (their) heart” instead to more and
more Divine service. That’s to say, they’d live apart from the main stream
of society and would spend their days and nights with G-d alone, in private
worship and reverie. (One could easily see how the great majority of us
should be discouraged from following that path. Still and all we might
seclude ourselves occasionally -- at certain times of the day, once a month
perhaps, on especially challenging occasions, etc., but always with the
intent of drawing upon the experience as nourishment for when we’re back in
the thick of things.)

But Ramchal is quick to point out that even the pious shouldn’t go too far
in this. He advises them to be sure to “join in with good people for the
amount of time you’d need to study Torah (, to pray,) or to earn a living”
as we all must, but to then “go in seclusion in order to attach yourself to
G-d and to come to understand the way of goodness and the true way to serve
G-d”.

And he adds the following additional example of abstinence which we too
would be wise to follow. He advises us all to acclimate ourselves to
speaking less and to avoiding small talk, and to “not look beyond (our) own
environs”, that’s to say, to not envy others for what they have, and to not
muse about the unfeasible and unlikely.